1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting diode package and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a light emitting diode package that is used as a light source of a backlight unit, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various kinds of thin display devices are currently being used. Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) predominate in these thin display devices.
LCDs are used in various applications ranging from thin wall-mounted TVs to laptop computers to desktop computer monitors to navigation systems to PDAs to cellular phones to game machines. Liquid crystals forming the display devices of these liquid crystal displays do not emit light and merely transmit or block light according to electrical signals being applied.
Therefore, in order to display information on a liquid crystal panel, a surface light-emitting device, a so-called backlight unit needs to be separately provided within a liquid crystal display in order to illuminate the liquid crystal panel from the back. This backlight unit increases brightness and forms uniform surface light sources to evenly illuminate the liquid crystal panel. This is considered very important in terms of product quality.
In general, a backlight unit includes light sources, light guide plates, diffusion sheets, prisms, and a protective sheet. In this backlight unit, light emitting diodes (LEDs) are used as light sources in that LEDs are compact, have a long life span, low operating voltage, and high energy efficiency by directly converting electrical energy into light energy.
A plurality of light emitting diode packages are mounted onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB) and are provided at the sides of light guide plates. Light, emitted from each of the light emitting diode packages, is made incident on the light guide plate by total reflection so that light is emitted to a front face.
However, a light emitting diode package according to the related art has a limited orientation angle in both a minor axis direction and a major axis direction due to reflective walls surrounding LED chips.
Therefore, as for a minor axis direction, light leakage occurs, in which light passes over the light guide plate due to a wide orientation angle, thereby reducing uniformity, which is one of the most important properties of the backlight unit. As for a major axis direction, spacing between light sources is reduced due to a narrow orientation angle, which leads to an unnecessary increase in the number of light sources.